Baroness Amos: My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Development has made the following statement.
	Four years after the invasion, progress on reconstruction and development in Iraq remains mixed. Prime Minister Maliki's Government, less than a year old, face immense security, political and economic challenges. The escalating sectarian violence, which is for many Iraqis a daily reality, has displaced large numbers of people both within Iraq and the wider region. We are therefore responding to help to meet urgent humanitarian needs across the country. But the critical priority now is for the Iraqi Government to end the violence, so that Iraq's rich resources can be invested in creating better services and opportunities for all Iraqi people. Only a political solution will break the destructive cycle of violence, and Prime Minister Maliki has made tackling the violence his highest priority. It is therefore vital that we give this new and democratically elected Government every assistance.
	But there are gains worth noting and, more importantly, protecting. The most important achievement of recent years has been the establishment of a democratically elected Government, the first in Iraq for decades, replacing Saddam's brutal regime. Prime Minister Maliki's coalition Government were established following elections in which 76 per cent of the population voted. The constitution was agreed in a referendum and will be reviewed later this year. The Council of Representatives has agreed a budget law and will soon consider a hydrocarbons law to determine how Iraq's oil revenues will be managed. International support was crucial in helping to run and monitor the elections, as well as funding outreach programmes to encourage participation.
	Once a relatively wealthy country with high levels of education and healthcare, Iraq had by 2003 suffered more than 20 years of conflict, mismanagement and chronic underinvestment. The 2003 conflict and the continued violence, including sabotage of key infrastructure, as well as low (but growing) levels of management capacity in Iraq's national and local government, have slowed progress. However, reconstruction has continued and much has been achieved by the Government of Iraq, with support from the UK, US and a range of other donors.
	With international community support, Iraq has made some improvements to basic services. Over 5 million children have received life-saving vaccinations and Iraq is now spending 30 times more on healthcare compared to pre-war levels. Over 5,168 schools have been rehabilitated and a further 450 are in progress. More than 100,000 primary and 40,000 secondary teachers have been trained. Unfortunately, the violence is seriously affecting Iraq's health and education systems, as talented professionals are targeted or choose to leave the country.
	There has also been progress on the economic front. The Iraqi economy rebounded quickly in 2004 and dollar income has continued to grow, almost doubling by 2006. Income growth has mainly been driven by rising oil prices, so the challenge now is to convert more of the windfall earnings from oil to productive investments in public services and infrastructure.
	The UK is one of the first major donors to Iraq to fully disburse our Madrid pledge—£544 million since 2003. The further pledge of £100 million announced by the Chancellor is on top of this, bringing the total UK commitment to £644 million. From our own resources, we have funded major electricity and water projects in southern Iraq. For example, DfID has repaired the Al Hartha power station chimney and ensured the equivalent of 24 hours electricity to 85,000 households (enough to supply a city the size of Cardiff with 24-hour power). By the time these projects are complete, we will have added or secured 470 megawatts to the national electricity grid and improved access to water for about a million people. These projects will have employed around 450 people, generated almost 100,000 work days and secured around 17,000 work days per year for operation and maintenance.
	But there is still a long way to go. The major focus of our effort now is in helping the Iraqi Government to take the lead in investing in critical services and infrastructure. The Iraqi Government need to do more to provide basic services for their people and to protect those at risk. And they need to make a start on some of the economic reforms that will unlock more money to invest in better public services and infrastructure in the longer term. We and other donors are providing support to help them to do so.
	Much of the work done to get development in Iraq back on track goes unnoticed—the backroom, unglamorous slog of getting the right policy advice on tough issues such as drafting and redrafting budgets, setting up systems to manage central government business and dealing with milestones such as regular IMF reviews. But it is paying off. With help from donors, including DfID, the Iraqi Government have stayed on track with its stand-by arrangement, therefore meeting the conditions of the Paris Club debt reduction deal.
	This work is hugely important because it puts Iraqis in the lead. With oil revenues of $30 billion (93 per cent of the national budget) in 2007, there is no shortage of resources in Iraq. Iraq has the resources to finance its own development. The challenge is spending it effectively. What has been lacking is the capacity of Iraqi institutions to deliver. Thanks in large part to our work in Basra and Baghdad, this is beginning to change.
	Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister recently held a meeting with the Basra governor and Provincial Council and a range of relevant national Ministers to set out Iraqi plans for the development of the province. For the first time, Basrawis heard from their own Government how much money was to be invested in their area, when and on what. This sort of transparency is vital to building a culture of trust and accountability between government and people.
	Large numbers of civil society initiatives are springing up throughout Iraq. Over 250 newspapers and magazines have been launched since the fall of the regime and there are more than 2,500 registered Iraqi NGOs, which range from groups focused on reconciliation to groups promoting women's rights and organisations trying to enhance political participation. DfID's support for Iraqi NGOs has encouraged poor and marginalised sections of Iraqi society to engage in the political process by fostering partnerships between international NGOs to provide advice and support to other Iraqi grass-roots organisations.
	While these achievements are important, and a credit to the Iraqis and their partners who work so hard in the face of enormous risks and challenges, there is much still to do. Our objective remains to develop the capacity of the democratically elected Government of Iraq and to increase their ability to provide security and basic services to the Iraqi people.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Vera Baird) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	On 1 March, the Legal Services Commission (LSC) published the following papers, which take forward the Government's legal aid reform programme set out last November in Legal Aid Reform: The Way Ahead. The papers reflect comments and concerns raised during consultation on Legal Aid: A Sustainable Future, published in July alongside Lord Carter's report. The papers are:
	the LSC's strategy for family legal aid, Making Legal Rights a Reality for Children and Families, which sets out the LSC's priorities for the delivery of family legal aid for the next five years;a paper re-consulting for 6 weeks until 16 April 2007 on revised fee schemes for care proceedings and family help (private), which will apply from October 2007. Changes include retention of the uplift for panel membership for exceptional cases; lowering of the threshold for exceptional cases; and increasing the graduation of the fees in private law family cases;a paper consulting for 12 weeks until 24 May 2007 on changes to the funding code in relation to public law children cases. This proposes to introduce a "reasonableness" test for special Children Act proceedings, and the removal of residential assessments from the scope of legal aid. As this is a new measure rather than a re-consultation, LSC is consulting for the full period;the revised immigration and asylum legal aid fee scheme, to apply from October 2007. Changes include the dropping of the proposal to introduce the early resolution payment; reduction of the exceptional case limit; and the fact that all disbursements will now be claimed separately, including interpreter fees. This is the final scheme and we are not consulting on this further; and a six-week consultation until 16 April 2007 on the category-specific sections of the unified contract, and on a separate specification for contracting for services within immigration removal centres, to come into effect with the new fee schemes in October 2007.
	The revised mental health fee scheme will be published in the next few weeks. Advocacy arrangements in family cases from April 2008 will be the subject of a separate consultation later this year. The Government value the input of practitioners and interested parties on the ongoing reform of civil and family legal aid. We encourage all those with an interest to contribute fully to the current consultations. Copies of the papers published on 1 March are available on the Legal Services Commission's website at www.legalservices.gov.uk and copies have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

NHS Foundation Trusts

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My honourable friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Ed Balls) has made the following Written Statement.
	In my Written Ministerial Statement of 10 October 2006, I undertook to report to Parliament on a quarterly basis on the operation of the UK's asset-freezing regime. This is the first of these reports and covers the period October to December 20061.
	Asset-freezing framework
	The following changes have been made to asset-freezing legislation:
	Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order 2006, made in October; andAl-Qaeda and Taliban (United Nations Measures) Order 2006, made in November.
	These two orders updated the previous orders, as I explained in Statements to the House on 10 October and 7 November 2006.
	The Treasury has also strengthened the asset-freezing regime by agreeing, on the advice of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, to use closed-source evidence in cases where there are strong operational reasons to impose a freeze but insufficient open-source evidence available. I notified Parliament of this decision in October.
	Asset-freezing designations
	In the quarter October to December 2006, the Treasury made seven domestic designations under the terrorism order and the Al-Qaeda and Taliban order. Of these, two persons already listed were re-designated under the new orders. The terrorism order and the Al-Qaeda and Taliban order provide, where appropriate, for designations to be made confidentially and with restricted circulation of notice. Four persons were listed on this basis. Two persons were listed on the basis of closed-source evidence provided by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. In addition, the following financial sanctions listings of persons with links to the UK took place:
	none at the EU; and
	one person at the UN.
	No designated persons have been delisted in this quarter.
	Designations this quarter make a total of 195 separate accounts and approximately £525,000 of suspected terrorist funds frozen in the UK since 2001.
	Litigation
	There has been one case of domestic litigation regarding financial sanctions. The recent High Court judgment of 22 September 2006 in the case of M, A and MM v Her Majesty's Treasury (2006) EWCH 2328 (Admin) upheld the Treasury's actions regarding benefits payments to the households of designated individuals. The case was heard by the Court of Appeal on 18 December 2006 and we are awaiting the judgment.
	Reviews
	The Treasury keeps domestic asset-freezing cases under review. A number of formal reviews have been initiated in this quarter and the reviews of two cases have been completed. In both cases decisions were taken following the review to maintain the asset freeze.
	Licensing policy
	In accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1452 (2002), the Treasury operates a licensing system whereby designated persons and others are able to apply to make or receive payments under specific and, if necessary, monitored conditions. In this quarter, the following licences were issued:
	two listed persons were granted basic expenses licences, one of which was for benefits payments;there were no extraordinary expenses licences granted; and11 listed persons were granted legal expenses licences.
	In addition, the household of one listed person was granted a benefits licence in accordance with the policy that I set out in my Statement of 3 July 2006 to Parliament.
	1 The detail, which can be provided to the House on a quarterly basis, is subject to the need to avoid the identification, directly or indirectly, of personal or operationally sensitive information.